Chrysalis
by Arford
Summary: When the heir to Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina flees from Hi no Kuni to the foot of Hattori 'Salamander' Hanzo, everything changes for the Elemental Nations.


_Kill. Kill. KILL._ That word. The urge. It spread itself throughout his mind, infesting all his thoughts; the primal urge dominated the entirety of the boy's senses. Every last effort, every twitch of a muscle, leaned towards this supreme instinct. He knew nothing else but the word. Nothing else mattered.

_Rip them apart; destroy them, decimate them - make them FEAR. Make them pay; shred their very existences to nothing!_ This voice laughed inside his head and it hurt so much. He didn't know what else to do but to obey it. He roared out in fury and screamed as his crimson-coated arms lunged out at his enemies. He tore them from limb to limb, ignoring their cries of mercy and their shrieks of pain.

He had enough. He couldn't take it. Why were they so upset? Why were they so afraid? He was doing no more than returning the favors he received, if only at a portion of the original brutality. His voice bled out as a raspy croak, filled with rage and abnormal shifts in tone - a voice that belonged to no child, especially not one at the age of four. "What's _wrong_? Is this all you are? Is this all you amount to, you insufferable scum? _Die_."

It wasn't long before the screaming stopped. There was an awful silence, save for the rain.

The huffs of the young boy indicated that the body was exhausted; the anger seemed to fade. Crimson receded into nothing, dissipating in the air and retreating beneath the boy's skin. His eyes felt oh so tired. Red faded back to blue as he collapsed on the ground, amidst the corpses.

_Drip. Drop. Drip._ The rain seemed to wash off all the blood on the boy's hands, seemed to give him a new, refreshed sense of being. Gave him a clean slate. But that was a lie. After all, once the world turned red there was often no way to see any other hue except for the blackness of the sleep as his eyes shut slowly.

_Thump._ A landing loud enough to be mistaken for thunder gave way to the visage of a tower of a beast. It was larger than several buildings and stood proudly. Make no mistake, this was no lizard; this was an amphibian of massive proportions. Atop it stood a famed man, an ancient to the shinobi world - one of the greatest shinobi of all time.

Hattori Hanzo had been sitting in his tower at the heart of his village, Amegakure, and had felt the initial disturbance a while back. Even he, possibly the most powerful living shinobi, had felt fear crawl down his spine - a feeling he hadn't felt since any of the Great Shinobi Wars. Even then, he had felt it from but a handful of opponents; Sarutobi Hiruzen was one, and Namikaze Minato was another. The former had been donned the title of Shinobi no Kami, and appropriately so for his prime. He was also gifted with the name 'The Professor', a man who had researched thousands of techniques from all different branches. To fight against someone with a repertoire of such depth was no joke.

However, it appeared that only a few others had caused him to be wary. While Oonoki the Fence-sitter was renowned for his _Jinton_, it was said that he paled in comparison to his teacher, Mu. Hanzo hadn't had much experience against the now-elderly Tsuchikage, but in his bouts against him, the man caused him to only be slightly cautious. Even others such as the Raikage and Mizukage seemed irrelevant against him. Other than Oonoki, the Sandaime Kazekage had been the most difficult to deal with on a war-field, given his _Jiton_.

The only non-kage shinobi he ever had the honor of fighting and deeming somewhere even remotely near his league was a disgraced man by the name of Hatake Sakumo, who he dubbed Konoha's White Fang. Shamefully, the man was brought to death by only pride and failure; as a rival, Hanzo had mourned the loss of a great ninja, enemy or not.

After that, there was no other ninja who he came to be troubled by. It was unfortunate, but it seemed Sarutobi's students, Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and Tsunade could not surpass their teacher. He had been amused by their performance, but they had been little more than pests. However, he could see they had great potential; even at their initial peaking point, they were still continuing to grow. And so, he let them live.

What a grave miscalculation that had been.

Jiraiya has somehow found a gem amongst gems, to put it lightly. He found a diamond amongst the brittle bronze, a true shinobi from the most unlikely of origins. A clanless civilian who had no background, no advantages, no kekkei genkai, had emerged to become the greatest assassin of the Third Shinobi War.

Namikaze Minato was a name that struck fear into the hearts of all men, not just those of Iwagakure. Here was a boy of no notoriety; an amateur, so to speak. At least, that was what the world thought before the war had begun. By some forsaken method of insanity, the man had become a master of Fuuinjutsu while at the same time a succeful scientist of time-space theory and techniques.

The fruits of his labor were not rotten.

The young man revived a technique unseen in decades; he had restored, no, he had _recreated and improved_ the Nidaime Hokage's Hiraishin. This one skill single-handedly won the war for Konohagakure and led the man to be heralded as the Leaf's hero.

Even the great Salamander Hanzo could clap at the man's genius. He had never faced such an opponent before; he had never been so _thrilled_ and afraid at the same time. The battle between Namikaze and him had lasted days, with both sides unwilling to flee. Eventually, it was agreed to be a standstill with a shaky truce between Konoha and Ame. That was the last he had seen of Namikaze, and he had assumed that the man would survive the war.

However, Hanzo had spies everywhere, and despite the fact that Namikaze had lived through the war, he had heard of the man's death a few years ago.

So, that brought on some questions. One being: What the devil was a replica of a young Namikaze Minato doing at the doorstep of Ame's lands, surrounded by dead Konoha-nin? Another: Who were these corpses and how had they died? What was the miasmic aura he had felt, miles away from the battle's location? That feeling was so full of dread, he could not stop himself; he was unable to repress his own shivering. Him. A man who had fought in two Great Shinobi Wars, surviving both and killing thousands by his own hands.

His heart nearly stopped when he realized that the source of his fear was a child who appeared no more than the age of seven.

"This boy… he will become strong," he muttered as he stepped down from his infamous summon to lift the boy up on his shoulders. There was no mistake. This child had to be the son of Namikaze Minato. And for whatever reason, Konoha despised him enough to hunt down the heir to one of their greatest shinobi - he would have to find out what was going on in that land; perhaps Danzo would need to be contacted again - chasing him out of their realm and into his.

Regardless, they had done him a favor he could never repay by leaving this boy in his lands. Jiraiya had found treasure amongst the trash; he, too, would do the same. A true smile lit itself upon the legendary shinobi's face. Whatever the case, his instincts told him the boy would ascend to greatness - to heights that would dwarf his father's.

And for the first time, the rain of Ame didn't seem so dreary.


End file.
